


The Book of Lost Souls

by Toxin, writerdragonfly



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arguably Major Character Death (but none of the listed characters), Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Complete, M/M, Stealth Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-13 08:50:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11181264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toxin/pseuds/Toxin, https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerdragonfly/pseuds/writerdragonfly
Summary: Years after leaving Beacon Hills, Stiles finds himself drawn back into the supernatural life he thought he'd left behind--but the things that happened when he was a teenager aren't the same kind of things happening now. Pulling together a crew made up of members of his former life, Stiles Stilinski is going to take down the murderous hunter community--or die trying.author: writerdragonfly ||artist: ghost-of-erica-reyes





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Specific notes on the character deaths (which happen off screen prior to the start and are not explicit) can be found in the end notes. 
> 
> Huge thanks to my absolutely wonderful artist, [ghost-of-erica-reyes.](http://ghost-of-erica-reyes.tumblr.com) I adore the art so much~!

# 

# Part One

## In which Stiles discovers that some fates are not so easy to escape

 

 

The funeral is held on a Tuesday in late March, Beacon Hills drenched in gritty grey snow and slush. Stiles almost doesn't make it back in time, his approval for leave coming at the last possible moment.

 

Scott wasn't related to him, no matter how much Stiles wished otherwise.

 

There aren't as many mourners as Stiles had expected, but he thinks a great deal of that might have to do with the fact that most of Scott’s friends anymore had been supernaturally inclined and the matter of his death was suspect at best. It isn’t safe for most of his pack to attend, hunters likely on high-alert for them given their nature.

 

Stiles hasn’t been home for more than a day or two in nearly a decade, and Scott had stayed home with his burgeoning pack and his mother. Their lives had split into two very different directions after high school, but until the moment he gets the call that Scott is _dead_ , he doesn’t regret his decision to leave.

 

It’s Melissa McCall who changes things for Stiles, though Stiles wouldn’t have been able to keep himself still about Scott’s murder for long anyway.

 

She corners him the day after the funeral, sneaks into his house using Scott’s key and waking him up from a less than restful sleep by shaking his shoulder until he blearily opens his eyes.

 

“They killed him _,”_ she says when he sits up, her voice low and angry, “I know you weren’t close anymore, but they... they _killed_ him.”

 

“Who kill-”

 

“Take them down, Stiles,” she tells him, “you find those bastards and make them pay for what they did. My son isn’t--wasn’t... wasn’t perfect, but he was a good man. A good father.”

 

“Ms. McCall, I--”

 

“Please, Stiles,” she says, breaking off into a stifled cry, “please.”

 

“I will,” he says, patting her on the arm, “Of course, I will.”

 

And he means it.

 

**-x-**

 

His boss, a normally understanding woman, doesn’t like his decision to leave the Bureau. She can’t decline his withdrawal from service, but she does tell him before he leaves her office that he has two weeks leave before she’ll make it permanent, before she’ll file his two weeks notice.

 

She thinks it will give Stiles a chance to change his mind, that he’ll come back to his position as an analyst or even to train as an agent.

 

Before he even leaves her office, he knows he won’t.

 

He left the supernatural world behind as best as he could when he left Beacon Hills. His life, while not perfect, wasn’t all bad either.

 

But he knows that the moment he steps back into the world of magic and beasts and hunters that he’ll never be able to back out again.

 

He doesn’t have it in him to leave twice.

 

**-x-**

 

 

He’s wrist deep in illegally downloaded police files when he gets the call, his phone lighting up with an unfamiliar phone number and a 617 area code. It takes him four drawn out rings before he manages to answer, speaking into the phone with a rough, “ _Stilinski.”_

 

“ _Stiles_ ,” Lydia Martin says, and there’s a thread of sorrow in her voice that he can’t-- _won’t_ \--ignore.

 

“Lydia? What’s wrong?”

 

He hadn’t seen her in years, since before they both left Beacon Hills behind. He’d spoken to her, once or twice a year, but never anything of substance. Almost, he thinks, as if they were both ignoring the reality of the past they left behind.

 

“I just... I just heard about Scott... I’m sorry,” she says, but there’s something about the way her voice forms around the syllables that makes him think that’s not the whole story.

 

He has to clear his throat before he can manage a response, “Yeah, I had... wondered why you didn’t come to the funeral.”

 

“Jackson’s dead too,” she blurts out, and the way she says it reminds him of being sixteen and watching scales fade back to skin, of shiny metal keys, and fairy tale endings.

 

“ _Jackson?_ ” he blurts out, something like fear in his voice and a sadness he doesn’t quite get given the antagonistic relationship he’d always had with Jackson Whittemore.

 

“He’s _gone_ , Stiles. I just found him again and he’s gone.”

 

**-x-**

 

 

Stiles research into Scott’s death becomes something _bigger_. Something, not more important so much as more vital.

 

He isn’t a spectacular hacker. His mind had always been more suited to instinctual jumps of intuition and unraveling puzzles, but he’s not the worst at it either.

 

He finds a thread in the files of Jackson Whittemore and Scott McCall, and he examines that thread as much as he can with his limited abilities.

 

Three thousand miles and two weeks apart and one, seemingly insignificant detail in common. _Modus operandi._

 

He expands his search out, trawls through _thousands_ of recent murders committed with a knife in the past two years until he finds the pattern.

 

Silver athame, popular with teenage girls and wiccan practitioners. A stab directly in the heart. A lingering scent of flowers in the wound track.

 

The list of victims contains a great deal of people he’s never even heard of.

 

It also includes more of those he has than he’d expected. Scott and Jackson were expected. Isaac, Ethan, an Ito, and a Hale cousin are not.

 

He’s halfway through printing off his list of potential related murders when his phone rings again, though this time there’s _no number attached._

 

He answers slowly, cautiously placing a hand on his holster, his gun a comforting weight on his hip.

 

“Stilinski.”

 

“You noticed it too?” someone says, and it takes Stiles a beat to place the voice of someone he really hadn't spoken to in ten years.

 

“Danny?”

 

**-x-**

 

Danny Mahealani doesn’t look much different that he always did. He’s older, obviously, and it shows most in his face. But it’s not a bad sort of aging. If anything Stiles thinks he looks more attractive than ever.

 

But there’s a shadow in his face, especially the eyes, that Stiles thinks means a lot more than just getting older. It’s like loss and pain and Stiles can honestly say he would have never wished that look on Danny’s face for anything.

 

“It’s hunters, isn’t it?” Danny asks him as he settles into the booth across from him, a stack of papers slapping against the table with a loud smack. A few other patrons look their direction, but then go back to their own meals when they see that there’s really nothing of interest there.

 

“What else would it be? They even killed _Isaac Lahey_ , and he was about as harmless as a box of kittens.”

 

“Jackson wasn’t doing _anything_ wrong,” Danny says, and Stiles doesn’t miss the way one of his hands curls into a tight fist.

 

“I don’t think it matters to them,” Stiles admits, looking away from Danny’s face to the wall behind him.

 

“They were getting married, you know... Lydia and Jackson.”

 

“They were?” Stiles asks in surprise, his eyes firmly back on Danny.

 

“Jackson was going to ask her that night, when he died. Lydia called me all pissed because he never showed after he left my place.”

 

**-x-**

 

“If we’re going to... going to do this, we need a crew.”

 

“A crew?” Danny asks with a raised eyebrow, “This isn’t _Ocean’s Eleven._ ”

 

“No. It’s worse. At least they weren’t up against a bunch of soulless murderers.”

 

“Is that supposed to be comforting, Stilinski?”

 

Stiles huffs a humorless laugh, “I can do this on my own if you’re afraid.”

 

“No,” Danny says firmly, “I need to do this. They killed Jackson... and I hadn’t seen Ethan in years, but they killed him too. Who else is going to take them down?”

 

“We are,” Stiles says, his tone hard, “We’ll make them pay for what they’ve done.”

 

“Okay, so... who would be willing to help us?”

 

Stiles is silent for a long moment, thinking.

 

“I... I don’t know for sure if they’ll help, but I think I know who to ask. If you’re willing to find them?”

 

Danny raises an eyebrow again, and Stiles grins, wild and wolfish.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

## And a crew comes together

The sun is shining when they land in Portland,  a bright dichotomy to the heavy rain in DC. There’s some snow on the ground, but it’s not as heavy and oppressive as it melts under the warmer weather.

 

The cab from the airport drops them off in front of a restaurant that looks inviting and smells delicious, and the address appears to match the one Danny had found for Kira Yukimura.

 

They enter curiously, Stiles cataloging every bit in front of them that he can manage without being obvious. A waitress seats them on the side nearest the kitchen but farthest away from everyone else and it makes Stiles anxious.

 

Whoever Kira’s involved with knows they’re here, and Stiles knows that without a doubt.

 

The waitress takes their orders and leaves, but a quelling look from Stiles keeps Danny from saying anything important.

 

When the waitress returns with their drinks, Kira and an unfamiliar man follow. The man sits at the nearby table, and Stiles identifies him as both the chef _and_ Kira’s protection. He doesn’t know why she needs it, but finds himself glad she has someone there for her.

 

“Stiles!” She says happily when she recognizes him, pulling him into an impulsive, tight hug from the side while she speaks.

 

He returns it as best as he can manage without getting up before motioning to Danny, “You remember Danny Mahealani, right?”

 

Kira scrunches her nose a little, but eventually smiles and nods. “AP English, right?”

 

Danny nods, “It’s good to see you, Yukimura.”

 

“Oh, Kira, please,” Kira says, stealing a chair from a nearby table and sitting backwards on it while she speaks to them, “So I hear you were looking for me?”

 

“Yeah,” Stiles says, taking a moment to settle himself before he continues, “Did you hear about Scott?”

 

Kira’s face doesn’t lose the smile immediately, until the way he’s spoken sinks in.

 

“What happened to Scott?” The way her voice goes rougher over the words has her unnamed companion stiffening.

 

“Hunters,” Stiles says instead of the words that would certainly break her heart, hoping she gets the implication.

 

Her creative swearing makes him want to smile, just a little.

 

Her face, when it turns to face him again, is thunderous.

 

“When do we start?”

 

**-x-**

 

  
“My boss understands, you know. She’ll send help if we need it.”

 

“These are hunters, Kira. They’ll kill anyone who helps us.”

 

“Yeah, people have been trying to kill them for years. I’m just saying, if we need the extra help, we can _trust_ them.”

 

“We’ll keep that in mind,” Danny says diplomatically, “but in the meantime, we’re going to ask... _Miguel_... for help.”

 

“Miguel?” Kira asks, adorably confused and curious in turn.

 

“I hate you,” Stiles says to Danny, who just grins.

 

**-x-**

 

They find Derek in New York, in an expensive apartment in Manhattan that Stiles would have expected even a Hale to have trouble financing.

 

Not that it looks like he’s had _any_ trouble, given the inside.

 

“We need your help,” Stiles tells him, when Derek lets them inside.

 

Derek looks them over without saying anything for a long time.

 

“This about Scott?”

 

“You heard?”

 

“Yes,” Derek admits, “I just wasn’t going to risk the funeral.”

 

“Yeah, that was probably a good idea. But it’s not just about Scott,” Danny says, and Derek gets that old angry-alpha look on his face, the one Stiles hasn’t seen since that first summer, looking for Boyd and Erica.

 

“Who else died?” Derek barks out, and Kira flinches, just a little.

 

“Jackson,” Stiles answers, swallowing before he continues, “and Isaac.”

 

The sound that follows haunts Stiles’ nightmares for weeks.

 

 

**-x-**

 

“If we’re doing this, we need someone on the inside,” Kira protests.

 

“We need someone else who can handle violence,” Stiles says, “because I’m good with a gun but I’m not... _that_ good.”

 

“Argent,” Derek says, looking out the window of their hideout in Missouri, “Allison’s dad.”

 

“What makes you think he’s going to go up against what’s left of his _family_?” Stiles asks.

 

“His family is the reason everyone he cares about is dead,” Derek says, and when Stiles catches his eyes, they stay there for a long time.

 

**-x-**

 

Chris Argent is working as a mechanic in some dinky little town in the Midwest, barely making minimum wage. When he sees Stiles, he doesn't look happy. He looks tired and resigned and _sad_ in a way that Stiles doesn't like. Argent had been easy to find; he hadn't gone into hiding when Isaac died so much as run as far as he could without touching the Argent’s blood money.

 

After everything, Stiles couldn't blame him.

 

He didn't really know what kind of relationship Isaac had apparently had with the older man. It didn't matter. The fact was, Argent had obviously been damaged even further by his loss.

 

He isn't sure that he’ll will join them, that he’ll take a very real and permanent stand against the remnants of his family. But Stiles thinks that Derek is right in that Argent probably doesn't have anything (any _one)_ left to lose.

 

“What do you want, Stiles?” Argent asks with a grunt, slamming down the hood of an old Impala.

 

“We’re taking down the hunters who killed Scott and Isaac and--”

 

“Are you insane? You can't go up against the entire Argent family!” Argent yells, smacking a hand against the closed hood.

 

“If not us, then who?”

 

Chris stares at him for a long time, and wipes his hands on a ragged towel before he nods.


	2. Part Two

#  Part Two

##  In which a plan starts to form

 

The safehouse in Missouri sits in undeclared territory, nestled between the fringes of two quiet and self-enclosed packs. Stiles had bought it years before under an assumed name, the property coming cheap off a foreclosure sale with rumors of someone having died inside. He had intended it as a safe place to stash his father should the worst happen in Beacon Hills, but he hadn’t needed it ( _ yet _ ) and it sat in a state of dust and disarray without consistent upkeep over the years. 

 

The five of them stay in close quarters for the most part, the small size of the house and the latent unease about the situation pushing them together more than it might have otherwise. Derek and Argent, for their part, seem to be okay with each other. Stiles isn’t positive, but he has a feeling that they’d bonded over their losses somewhere along the line instead of hating each other for being the catalysts.

 

Kira ends up rooming with Danny in the attic, a nest of warm blankets, homemade quilts and assorted pillows splayed out over a couple air mattresses behind Danny’s computers. Kira, for her part, seems more comfortable around the low electric hum of his machines. Danny has always been hard for Stiles to read, but he thinks that Danny’s enjoying the reality of having someone so close without the need for any romantic or sexual inclination.

 

Derek and Stiles end up arguing with Argent over the use of the downstairs bedroom, both of them vehement that the older man get as comfortable of a rest as he can manage. It isn’t about his age--or perhaps more accurately, it isn’t  _ just _ about his age. The more Stiles thinks about it, the more he wants Chris Argent to stay well enough to defend them. And, perhaps a little, Stiles doesn’t want anything else to happen to anyone else that he’s, in a way, considered  _ his _ .

 

Eventually, they wear down Argent enough to take the damn bedroom just to get them to stop, and Stiles likes the little thrill the look in Derek’s eyes gives him when they meet, half a breath after Argent stomps his way into the room with his duffel and shuts the door closed with a loud click.

 

The couch in the living room is an old pullout Stiles had bought at an antique store, worn looking but still soft. Stiles and Derek decide to share it without ever talking about it, somehow easily falling back into an old unspoken routine from the days when Beacon Hills was a riotous mess of death and destruction.

 

Just like back then, Stiles stays awake until late into the night, his mind whirring with possibilities and plans and puzzles, Derek’s bulk a warm presence at his side.

 

In the mornings, Danny clambers down the attic steps with a tablet under his arm a good half an hour before Kira stumbles out of bed looking like she spent three hours in hair and makeup. Chris cooks them breakfast with the ease of someone used to cooking for people, and the faintest hint of a smile full of pain on his lips.

 

It’s domestic and easy, somehow, in the mornings. As if they’ve always been this way.

 

After breakfast they sit around the small table in the kitchen and go over details. They talk about the big players in the Argent family corporation, about Bridgette Argent, elder sister of Gerard Argent who ruled with an iron fist and his bevy of cousins and second cousins who had, despite Chris’s best efforts, always been more attuned to his father’s way of doing things rather than the way he had always known.

 

Stiles plans. He listened to Danny’s reports about their business practices and the accounts full of money and the specific amounts that scream  _ PAYOFFS _ and he plans. Chris offers as much detail on his extended family as he can, details that seem innocuous but Stiles immediately mentally catalogues as “ _ the way in” _ and “ _ the back-up plan”. _

 

By the time lunch rolls around, they’ve usually separated for a much needed break from the angry fear charged discussion and plotting. In the afternoon, Stiles and Danny head out into the forest where Chris trains them as best he can in physical defense, building off Stiles’ experience in the FBI and Danny’s experience in martial arts to bring out what talent they already have. Kira and Derek practice fighting against each other until they’re both panting messes when they all meet inside for more planning and plotting and dinner.

 

For nearly three months, they stay holed up and  _ plan _ . No outside contact other than grocery store visits and highly coded emails to Stiles’ father and Danny’s sister and Kira’s crew back in Portland, the GPS in their phones destroyed to prevent them being found by the same hands that killed Scott and Jackson and Isaac.

 

Stiles doesn’t sleep much during those long nights, his mind full of what’s to come and what’s happened and what they have to do.

 

The day things change is four months to the day of Scott’s murder, Stiles waking up long before the rest of them and slipping out of Derek’s sleepy grasp to outline his plan--his long thought out and very  _ different  _ plan from the one they’d started haphazardly throwing together--filling up the entire west wall with papers and pictures and string, brightly colored string that reminds of him of the Nogitsune and being afraid and terror.

 

Chris is the first to get up, his voice still gruff with sleep but approving of the wild plan outlined on the wall. He grins at Stiles, an open real smile that feels like promise and good and hope.

 

Real hope.

 

Derek joins them soon after, leaning against Stiles in a way that feels like  _ maybe _ and  _ promise _ . He squeezes Stiles shoulder when he finally passes to get dressed, and Stiles understands what it means before the words even come out of Derek’s mouth.

 

“If you believe this will work, I trust you,” Derek says, and Stiles thinks of swimming pools and bedroom doors and kneeling in water and thinks,  _ finally _ .

 

**-x-**

 

Argent Industries is a sprawling building in downtown Memphis, all red brick and old world charm. It doesn’t remind Stiles of sleek sniper rifles and purple blossoms, but somehow he recognizes it as something wholly dangerous anyway.

 

It’s something masquerading as something more wholesome than it is and Stiles thinks that maybe that’s why. 

 

He knows the darkness that lurks beneath the skin of the Argents, under their armor lies a tremendous number of truly twisted personalities. He knows to be more afraid of the hunter than the big bad wolf.

 

For all the hustle and bustle of the city, there isn’t nearly enough regular traffic leading into the Argent Industries building. There is  _ some _ , mostly a series of sharply dressed men and women in expensive business-wear stalking inside without a word. It’s... it’s not  _ super _ natural, not in the usual sense of the word. But it feels too staged for it to be real, too  _ un _ natural.

 

There’s also a series of carefully camouflaged  _ turrets _ on the building itself, one every forty feet or so.

 

Stiles has his doubts that they’re anywhere approaching legal, but he’s also aware the Argent name alone has clout around here. Maybe not to everyone, but to enough people that what they’re about to do is dangerous for more reasons than being potentially fatal.

 

He would be lying if he said there wasn’t a small part of himself that wondered if what they were going to do would be worth it should the worst happen. But there was a larger part of him that remembered Scott McCall, a new father to a chubby little girl. And Isaac Lahey, who had been working as a therapist for abused and neglected children and teens and working on adopting a thirteen year old. Jackson Whittemore, who had been about to get married and have a series of increasingly attractive babies with one of the US’ most preeminent mathematical scholars.

 

He would be lying if he said it wasn’t worth every life they could save, regardless of whether he knew them or not. And, though he wouldn’t admit it out loud to anyone, it would be worth it if he never had to see that look of anguish on the face of anyone he cared about ever again.

 

These people, these four who had quickly become as close to him as Scott had ever been, they were worth fighting for, fighting alongside.

 

And well, Stiles had never been good at not getting revenge.

**-x-**

 

“Oh, Christopher,” Bridgette Argent says, her voice sickeningly sweet over each syllable, “Do you really expect me to believe you want to come back into the fold?”

 

“No,” Chris says, his voice a practiced even tone, “I don't.” 

 

The smirk that spreads across his face is nothing short of perfect. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

##  And a fight begins

“Argent Industries is headquartered in Memphis,” Danny says, throwing candid shots of the building up on the screen, “despite this, less than a hundred employees are inside at any given time.”

 

“They tend to separate into units, usually initially around family units like parents and children. But the more legitimate parts--manufacturing, mostly--tend to stay within the factories. Most of the factory workers--all the way through the higher-ups, aren't hunters,” Chris interjects, pointing at the corner of the screen where the four shots of Argent arms factories are minimized. 

 

Danny takes the cue as intended, expanding them with a quick series of keystrokes. Each of the factories is carefully labeled. Detroit, Michigan. New Orleans, Louisiana. Billings, Montana. Phoenix, Arizona. Some sort of bizarre off-center postage stamp of cities across the US, Stiles thinks, cataloguing the geography. 

 

“Does anyone ever question why they send out groups to contract with local police departments when the company is already nationwide?” Stiles asks Chris, chewing on his lower lip as he processes. 

 

“Yeah,” Kira pipes up, “why don't they let the Argent name speak for itself in those communities? Like, everyone knows Colt or Smith & Wesson.”

 

“That's obviously a cover. And a way to get on the good side of the local police when they're hunting. Probably what allows them to cross state lines with weapons. But Stiles has a point, does anyone ask?” Derek asks, and Stiles very resolutely doesn't feel warm at the matter-of-fact way Derek says it. 

 

“There's the argument that it's because Argent isn't the first name that comes up when you think of weapons,” Chris says, sighing as he tries to remember, “but if there were ever any questions like that posed, they weren't to me. I don't know if there has been.”

 

“We don't want to take down the factories if there's any way to avoid it, right? Because there's no reason for the good people to lose their jobs just because the company higher ups are corrupt to the core.”

 

“I don't know that it'll  _ be _ possible,” Stiles says, thinking it over. Because he couldn’t see a logistical way to save the factories without saving some of the upper-level management.

 

And Stiles doesn’t think a single one of the murderous bastards deserves to have the riches of a national corporation.

 

**-x-**

 

“Christopher Argent, here to see Bridgette,” Chris says at the security station, handing over his nearly expired ID card without hesitation. The guard raises an eyebrow but scans the proffered ID anyway. 

 

“I’ll inform Madam Argent’s floor that you’re on the way,” the man says when the machine beeps, an accepted name on the display.

 

“You do that,” Chris says, with just enough of a hint of superiority to identify him as most certainly an Argent.

 

“You sound like an ass,” Stiles says over their comms, making Chris grin as the elevator doors shut a moment later.

 

**-x-**

 

While Chris confronts his aunt (a  _ wretched  _ woman if the reports are to be believed), Derek and Kira are playing the parts of a new couple in the neighborhood, charming their way into Bridgette Argent’s home through the decadently dressed man who stays home while Bridgette viciously runs her company  _ and _ her hunters alike.

 

Her husband is a good twenty years younger, closer to Chris’s age than Bridgette herself. He doesn’t seem bothered or concerned by the sudden appearance of two new neighbors, or even by the way Kira slinks away to “powder her nose” once they’re inside. 

 

Derek keeps the man distracted, plying him with shortbread cookies made with the traditional Argent recipe the night before, plus a carefully balanced addition of Valium and Benadryl. It’s not long before he passes out, sprawled on an elegant flower printed couch, just as planned. 

 

The housekeeper, a timid looking woman with a concealed carry permit and a vacuum cleaner, mutters under her breath about drunken louts when she comes across them, seemingly not concerned about her employer’s husband unconscious with a complete stranger. As if that’s normal, instead of a reason to pull out her weapon or run for the phone to call the police.

 

“Does he do this often?” Derek asks her, pasting on his most charming face and smiling at her.

 

**-x-**

 

Stiles, for his part, monitors the comms from their shitty motel room between the Argent headquarters and the matriarch’s lavish home, Danny at his side running through the material that Kira scans in real time. He registers the details as best he can, his mind whirring as he keeps up with both sides of the plan. 

 

“She has a black book,” Kira says, a surprised tone in her voice. Stiles shares a look with Danny, something feral and excited in turn.

 

“Get as much of it as you can, but don’t damage it. We want her to find it in tact,” Stiles tells her, turning back to the screen where Chris’s hidden camera shows Bridgette’s office.

 

**-x-**

 

“What have you done?” the woman asks, her voice firm and angry.

 

“Leave,” Stiles says in his comm, his voice rising in volume, “get out, now.”


	3. Part Three

# Part Three

 

 

By the time Chris makes it back to the motel, it’s early evening. Stiles can catalog the damage done to the older man as severe but not unsurpassable. He hadn’t made it out of the Argent Industries building without damage, and if Stiles was right, he had been clipped by one of the silenced turrets before he was able to make his escape.

 

Stiles couldn’t imagine that it was easy to explain away the military grade automatic weaponry, and despite whatever component made an attempt to muffle the shots, someone had obviously seen the weapon fire coming from the building.

 

The local news channel was broadcasting the shooting of an “ _unnamed pedestrian”_ , and the legal fallout that would come, though they hadn’t, at least, been able to identify the victim.

 

Chris had still obviously struggled to get his way back unnoticed, likely having to stop to wrap his wounds _and_ lose his tail.

 

Danny took over checking the older man’s injuries, leaving Stiles to plop back on the bed he was sharing with Derek in relief.

 

He had known Chris would be okay, had still been in contact with him for most of the day until the comm battery had died, though the camera had been broken in one of his earlier fights.

 

But worry about someone you couldn’t actively lay eyes on was never something that was limited by the affirmation that it would be okay. Stiles still worried about his father, even now.

 

Chris, for all his past failings, was a man who held himself to a higher standard. He’d been lonely, Stiles knew without a doubt, and now he had something approaching family again.

 

And well, Stiles had a family again too.

 

He didn’t doubt it was the same for the rest of them.

 

“Report?” Chris asks with an exhausted sounding groan once Danny releases him. Stiles isn’t completely sure if Chris is asking if he needs to or if he wants Stiles to , but he supposes it doesn’t matter.

 

His blood family attempting to murder him aside, it _had_ been established that Stiles was in charge of their operation, even if Stiles isn’t quite sure how it happened.

 

“Do you have anything new to tell us, or should we continue?” Stiles asks anyway, leaning into Derek’s side without another word.

 

“I think everything is fairly obvious from the last report,” Danny interrupts, settling back into his chair at the desk with his laptop, “He wouldn’t have risked coming back here if he still had someone following him.”

 

“ _He_ can speak for himself,” Chris says, his arms crossed in front of himself, but Danny’s only response is a wide grin.

 

“You look about twenty years younger with that whole passive aggressive angry teenager vibe you've got going, Argent,” Stiles says.

 

Chris sighs, dropping his arms.

 

**-x-**

 

The plan doesn't go smoothly.

 

Some of the hunters are able to escape before the raid on Argent Industries, something that they had expected but hoped wouldn't happen.   
  
Bridgette, when arrested, refuses to speak about her crimes. Her husband, a known assassin of his own right, has no such compunctions, choosing to accept a deal in order to avoid the heavy jail time that the rest of them have to look forward too.   
  
Several hunters commit suicide when they realize that they won't be able to avoid their punishment.   
  
Stiles almost wishes he could say he's upset about the fact, but he would be lying if he did that.   


  
**-x-**   


  
" _Bridgette Argent, former president of weapon manufacturer Argent Industries, was indicted today on charges including serial murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and grand larceny. This is in addition to the counts of accessory to commit murder that are currently pending with more than one hundred of her employees in what the justice department is calling the most disturbing crime ring to hit the US in over fifty years."_

  
  
**-x-**  


  
"So, is this it? I mean, we didn't get everyone but... there's so many of them facing what they did now."   
  
"No," Danny says, looking up from his laptop where Stiles had assumed he was playing solitaire, "No, we have one last thing we need to steal."   
  
Stiles is on his feet and at Danny's shoulder before he's even aware of moving, Derek a sturdy presence behind him.   
  
"Ohmy--Chris, did you _know_ about this?" Stiles asks, pointing at the screen.

 

Chris gives him a confused look before Danny spins the laptop around, showing him the last bit of data from Kira’s scanned files.

 

 _“The Book of Lost Souls,”_ reads the screen, “will remain in the hands of my grandson, Lucas. Inquiries on the next hunt can be directed toward Lucas, who will be compiling the files at his home.”

 

“The Book of--she had that?” Chris says, and Stiles doesn't miss the way Derek goes tense behind him.

 

“It's real?” Derek asks, a hint of a growl in his voice.

 

“I didn't know!” Chris hisses at him, and by the way he snaps Stiles has no doubts that he's being honest.

 

“For the uninformed,” Kira pipes in, waving her cheese stick in Chris’s face.

 

“It's a magic book,” Derek answers, and Stiles tries not to jump when Derek’s hand slides into his in a tight squeeze, “that continually lists supernatural creatures and their locations. It's supposed to show the purest souls, but if it's in the hands of hunters and they're _killing from it--”_

 

“Oh god,” Kira gasps, her cheese bubbling between her tightly fisted fingers.

 

“Where is Lucas? I assume he's an Argent?” Stiles asks in the quiet afterward.

 

“He runs a surf shop in Hawaii,” Chris says, “I didn't even know he went into the... family business.”

 

“Danny?” Stiles asks, and Danny brings his computer back in front of him to start a search.

 

There's no point in asking Danny to do something specific, he's already cottoned on to what Stiles wanted.

 

 

**-x-**

 

Hawaii is beautiful and warm, but none of them really take the opportunity to enjoy it.

 

They can’t risk the book being moved, pulling together a quick plan on the trip there.

 

Lucas Argent lives in a three story building, the bottom floor the base for his shop. The second one is home, and the third his private museum, the centerpiece a mysterious book in a glass case.

 

In the end, it all culminates in this: Kira takes out the power in the building, all three floors suddenly pitch black. Danny works to reroute the phone calls and emergency crews, his fingers a furious beat on the keys of his computer system. Chris sits beside Danny, carefully watching the monitors in case the rest of them need a rescue.

 

Stiles isn't where he wants to be. It isn't that he's uncomfortable being the one to actively steal the book. He doesn't actually have a problem with the breaking and entering or the stealing itself, but he knows that Kira would be the better thief. She’d already proved her worth to them.

 

Stiles does it anyway, hooks himself into her climbing gear before dropping down through the roof. Derek meets him inside, having climbed the side of the building and entered through the window in the next room, stripping the alarm before the battery backup can kick it back on.

 

Cutting through the glass takes longer than it does in movies, Stiles trying to keep as steady as he can so as not to jostle it.

 

It pays off a beat later when he’s able to pull the book up, the frail pages almost feeling warm beneath his gloves. He nods at Derek as he hits the button to retract his line, affirmation that he’s finished.

 

Except then the line snaps with a sharp twang as the end of it smacks again the glass where Stiles had climbed inside, a man smirking down at him from above.

 

Stiles crashes down into the glass case, shards of newly shattered glass crashing over every available surface. The security guards who pour into the room seem to expect an easy win, pulling out guns.

 

But Stiles has a secret weapon, even as they get ready to fire from where he’s struggling to stand.

 

Derek moves in a burst of fury and action, slamming security personnel into walls and artifacts. Stiles dodges as best he can, heading toward the window Derek had gotten inside with.

 

The other man follows at his heels, though Stiles can smell the blood on him even with his very human nose.

 

Despite the injury and Stiles’ own series of near misses from the hail of bullets, they are able to escape through the window, Stiles quickly using his paracord to tie himself _to Derek_ before he jumps out of the window in what can only be a superhuman leap.

 

Danny, Chris and Kira meet them a beat later with their rented van, and then they’re speeding away from the building.

 

It takes longer than it should before Stiles realizes that the book, still clenched tightly in his hands, is getting warmer by the moment.

 

He drops it in the back of the van, startling Kira who was hard at work bandaging the gunshot Derek took to the side.

 

“What’s wrong?” Derek asks, as if he’s not the one already bleeding through his new white bandages.

 

“You said the book was magic?” Stiles asks, cautiously picking it back up after peeling off his gloves.

 

“Yeah. Self-updating. The myth even says there are some pages only a chosen few can read.”

 

“Is that why it’s warm?” Stiles asks, gently opening the cover as if it might bite him otherwise.

 

“I’ve never heard of _that_ , but it’s supposed to be a legend...”

 

Stiles catches Derek’s eyes, something like promise and hope and forever in that intense gaze.

 

When Stiles looks back down, it’s to see a page glowing beneath his fingertips, a spell slowly scrawling its way across the page as if created by magic itself.

 

_To revive a soul lost before it’s time..._

**Author's Note:**

> Referenced character deaths: Scott McCall, Isaac Lahey, Jackson Whittemore, Ethan and several original characters.


End file.
